Guide: Best PS4 RPGs

Valkyria Chronicles is amazing if you haven't played it yet give it a try guys.

Also, if you are on the verge give FFXV a try, it's the most engaging and bold JRPG I played this generation... and I wasn't really expecting to like it. The guys are NOT the emo/dark fest they seem to be from the images.

Have to play NIER!

That top 5, so good. Hard to argue with that.

Still no love for South Park stick of Truth or Fractured Butthole

I'm sure Octopath Traveler will get a PS4 release at the very least. UE4, easy conversion.

@Knuckles-Fajita Will it make the top 30, though?

Can't say I agree with the list, especially with Nino Kuni being so low, while Dragon's Crown is at 16.

Other than that, it's fine. Some pretty great R.P.G.s to choose from.

@get2sammyb Hmmm. Hard to say. Yet to see any complaints beyond "Grinding" but I mean....its an RPG! So in that respect yes I suppose so.

But look forward to it in a year whenever the exclusivity runs out.

Just started Ni No Kuni 2 and so far it’s fantastic! I’d say it deserves to be a lot higher up based on what I’ve played, but I am playing a patched version of the game with difficulty levels.

Yeah...
Witcher lll is still no.1 on my gaming list. Happy to see the same here. However, I think Ghost Of Tsushima is on the same level. Perhaps even more better... we'll see soon enough.

@Feena Nier Automata is brilliant. I’ll make you a deal - if you play Nier, I’ll play FFXV. 😉 And Valkyria Chronicles is great, agree there.
Actually there are several on the list here that I still need to play.

Also Ys VIII Lacrimosa of Dana needs to be in your top ten one of the best JRPG's in recent times.

No space for the original dark souls remastered? I'm pretty early in my first play through but it seems high quality. I'm enjoying more than ds3 (which is still pretty great).

@Th3solution Deal

I feel like I'm in the minority with my feelings about the witcher 3.

Spent a truly ridiculous amount of hours roaming Dragon Age Inquisition! Some excellent suggestions here, obvious well known titles such as TW3 (which definitely earns its number one spot) plus some more overlooked titles busily adds Odin Sphere, Zodiac Age and more to wishlist

Why is Persona 5 once again not at the top spot? Blasphemy.
Dragon's Dogma really stuck out to me here. I also need to play Tales of Bersaria with its villain's story too. It looks great. Dang, my backlog though. I really need to make a good plan for how to handle that sometime.

Good list. There's plenty of games here that I really ought to play if I ever have the time.

I have played almost all of them and I do agree with most of the games, but in my opinion The Darkest Dungeon should have been there.

Not Octopath Traveller...

My top 3 :

1 - The Witcher 3
2 - Bloodborne
3 - NieR Automata

Hmm. I've played two of the top five.

Persona 5 is a lot of fun, if profoundly repetitive, overly tutorialized, and with a borderline broken combat system. Time is revealing its flaws, although it's still easily one of the most stylish games ever made.

I couldn't get into Bloodborne. Barely any explicit narrative. You just run around empty, samey-looking streets and the occasional Lovecraftian otherworld killing abominations. It has a good combat system, but the game almost feels half-finished.

No interest in Diablo. I'm sure I'll get to Horizon eventually. And, as has become tradition for me, I have to point out that I've still yet to purchase The Witcher 3.

Honestly, at this point I'm tempted to call Valkyria Chronicles the best game I've played on this list.

Next up for me on this list is Nier: Automata, as I really like what I've seen of it and heard about it.

Don't agree with the order but it's a nice comprehensive list.

My Top 10, in somewhat order:
1. Yakuza 6
2. Ni no Kuni 2
3. Lost Sphear
4. Persona 5
5. Dragon Quest Builders
6. Dragon Quest Heroes 2
7. the Swords of Ditto
8. The Witch and the Hundred Knight 2
9. Little Witch Academia: Chamber of Time
10. Earthlock

Nier: Automata is definitely worth a go then? I've been trying to get into it but the first few hours have been putting me off.

I think I am seriously playing Dragon's Crown wrong!! I bought it for my Vita because it was getting great reviews and people seemed to be enjoying it. But I just don't enjoy it!!

What am I missing??!!

RPGs that I missed that I hope eventually get released/remastered on PS4:
Final Fantasy 8
Final Fantasy 13 trilogy
Mass Effect trilogy
Yakuza, if they all get US releases, I'll buy the whole series then

@Ralizah How is the combat borderline broken? It’s hard for a 115 hour to not reveal its flaws while your playing it.
Also, you go onto a forest after the town area, so the environment changes.

Agree ni no kuni 2 pales in comparison to the original on ps3.hoping for a remaster! Second one is a quest fest lol

@Jaz007 Once you have a semi-decent spread of skills, you will inevitably all-out attack literally every random encounter in the game from that point on. Battles only last a couple of seconds with respect to actual decision-making, and there's virtually no threat to the player from them, even on hard mode. I probably saw that same animation a thousand times over the course of my playthrough.

Bloodborne had a few different types of environments, but they all felt the same to me. Probably because of the unchanging drabness of them.

If this list is in order, someone must really love Dragon's Crown to put it ahead of Skyrim. It's a good game, pretty repetitive though, but the 2-D visuals are pretty to look at. But a better RPG than Skyrim??

Nioh is a far far better game than HZD and most of the games in this list

The best eh? 30 of them? Didn't work too hard to narrow down the selection did you. Oh, but there are 30 Amazon links posted. Hope it satisfies the paymasters. Seems to have been a lot of "The best..." articles in the past week, helpfully accompanied by Amazon links. Are you having to meet a quota? Feels like it.

@JohnnyBastos Wow, websites have to make money, who'd have thunk it?!

No, the Amazon links obviously help the site out but we certainly don't rely on them.

It's no secret that guides like this do a lot of traffic, but we like to think they're helpful. We include 30 RPGs in this because all 30 of them are good, if not great games. By cutting it down to a top 20 or 30, we feel like we're not giving people the full picture.

Regardless of what some people might think, we're always working to help inform the community through top quality content. We've never put the money first and we never will.

Hell, if we were really in it for the money, we wouldn't be part of this industry to begin with.

@MDHegs Nothing. I didn't enjoy it either and kept wondering what everyone saw in it.

It's just not for everyone.

IMO lists of the best [insert genre] should include only games native to the system. FF12 (others?) should not be on this list anymore than Burnout Paradise should be on a list of the best PS4 racing games.

@Ralizah I felt like that was the point given that you were Phantom Theives and we’re supposed to ambush them with stealth. There’s a bonus you can get for defeating enemies in the first ambush round from one of the confidants too. Some of the later enemies are harder to that do since they have more HP and some lack a weakness.

Really enjoyable article, staggering amount of great games.

I was surprised to see Diablo 3 so high up the list, it's a terrific game but one that has dropped off most people's radar. Couple of games I might have included would be the Southpark titles, Prey and Deus Ex.

Games really do continue to get better and better, we are so lucky!

@ShogunRok Fair dos. I didn't realise the listicles were so popular. I visit multiple times daily specifically because of the quality of journalism. I don't begrudge the site making money by adverts or click-throughs or whatever. It just seemed like there was a glut of these 'guides' in the past two weeks, and not all of them show the same level of effort. The ones on PSPlus credit, external harddrives, or racing wheels, for example, were just a list of amazon links. No opinion, no assessment criteria, no comparison, just a description of what the thing is. Top quality content? Not in my book. The headphones one was great, that's what I'd call quality content.

Just holding you guys to the high standard you set elsewhere on the site. Not being blind to economic realities.

Updated with new entries!

@ShogunRok I'd put FFX top 10, but X-2 is one of the worst games I've ever played. If it released today it would be $15 DLC and it would still suck. I still can't believe it's even a game, a dress-up mini game at best. The beginning of the end of FF. XII was a fun game to play, but it wasn't a good FF game. The Bouncer is the beginning of the end for Squaresoft, when "graphics above all else" became the company mantra. Well at least on Sony consoles, everybody keeps raving about Octopath but I can't bring myself to play it, too old school and brown.

Great list but I disagree on 2 points:

1) Nioh deserves 10 positions more at least

2) how the Yakuza games made into the list? If so there should be also the last God of War, and in the top 5

Personally, I'll never understand the love for The Witcher 3.

Really don't agree with that list especially the top five, the overrated persona five should be in top ten,not top five and Tales of Berseria raking so low is criminal

I would put Divinity Original Sin 2 in the top 5 personally. It is fantastic.

Really enjoyable read. I would have put "the Surge" and "Infamous" in my top 30 RPGs and I definately wouldnt have dragons crown anywhere near this list.

I always think its fun to see other peoples favourites and opinions and all that... Now stop forgetting about Infamous!!

You should do a top 30 playstation exclusives. I think that would be a fun article.

God of War and Detroit should probably also be on the list by now, they have certainly sold enough copies.

@bpomber Same here, I don't get it. It doesn't do anything new as far as RPGs go, it's more or less the same game as Witcher 2. Not that every great game has to be innovative of-course, a game can be a10/10 game simply by doing typical stuff really well.

It's not that I think Witcher 3 is bad game, I would certainly rate it 6/10 or maybe 7/10. I just think it's rather boring and generic in comparison to games like Horizon Zero Dawn, Yakuza 6, Ni no Kuni 2, Nier, and well …. most of the other games on the above list.

Just a quick note to say that you're all utterly insane.

The Witcher 3 is the best game I have ever played. The quests, characters and game atmosphere put a lot of other RPGs to shame, in my opinion.

@beemo 7 times?! Blimey, you're a bigger fanboy than me! I like it.

@beemo It is definetly light on what I would call "RPG" but with the Yakuza series on here I figured it fit their criteria.

@Knuckles-Fajita Octopath Traveler is published by Nintendo everywhere in the world except Japan. It's essentially in the same position as Horizon Zero Dawn and God of War. Nintendo publishing a PS4 game is about as likely as Sony publishing a Switch one.

Updated with a new entry.

Tales of Beseria so low please. 🤫

For me it's Dark Souls, BloodBorne, Monster Hunter and Witcher.
Torn between Witcher and Monster Hunter for my favourite, they're both so amazing and each offers a different type of experience.
I'd say Monster Hunter for gameplay, Witcher for story and characters.

All good choices. The only one I noticed not in the list unless I missed it is Pillars of Eternity. Great game. Its only downfall is the long load times.

@bindiana +1 from me for Lacrimosa of Dana

Horizon isn't number 1, therefore your list is invalid.

I don't like RPGs, yet I love Horizon. Therefore it is clearly the best.

I have spoken. My word is law. Your opinions are irrelevant. Deal with it. 😎

(That is how the internet works these days, right?)

I know people are going to dislike my opinion, but after sinking so much time in AC: Odyssey (I still haven't finished it yet), I think I like it more than I did/do The Witcher 3. I'm not saying it's the better game, of course - just that I enjoy it more. I'm simply in awe of this game. It's incredible, and the level of depth in some of the side-quests are quite remarkable.

UPDATED!

AC Odyssey at 22?! And #5 for an RPG without a story. I love it! 🤣

I am surprised that Kingdom Hearts III is so “low” on the updated list.

Persona 5 should be at the top. The Witcher feels more like an action adventure game with some RPG elements. Persona 5 & Dragon Quest 11 are more faithful to the RPG genre, but popularity wins.

All these lists remind me of is how I'm not going to need a new games console for years. So many fantastic games to catch up on.

Witcher is superb but both Persona and Bloodborne are better. Close enough though I guess.

@OmegaYato Nah, it's factually the best RPG. Probably the best game ever made, too. Can't argue with the facts.

Kingdom Hearts III, Valkyria Chronicles 4 and Tales of Vesperia worse than the travesty that was Final Fantasy XV.
No.

@ShogunRok Highly disagree.

Does Roach ever tell Geralt when to go to bed? No. Therefore The Witcher 3 is miles better than Persona 5.

@ShogunRok Factually the best? Not with that clunky gameplay. Don’t give me that crap, like you and other toxic fanbases don’t try to argue with facts everyday.

@OmegaYato I am the facts.

Two games in the top 5 just made a beautiful crossover baby and it's amazing.

@ShogunRok Yeah, well, I'm the Alternative Facts.

Facts are simple and facts are straight
Facts are lazy and facts are late
Facts all come with points of view
Facts don't do what I want them to

@Ichiyama I'm stiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiill waiting

fact
/fakt/
noun
a thing that is known or proved to be true.
"it is a fact that The Witcher 3 is the best game of all time"
synonyms: reality, actuality, certainty, factuality, certitude;

@Cutmastavictory im right there with you. I just wanted to punch Geralt right in the face lol. Big sprawling rpgs like that i want my own character. And the combat for me was very meh

@ShogunRok *opinions

Know the difference.

@Nyne11Tyme the combat was not fun at all, for me fighting is more important than story in an action game & the combat was a mess. I also hated the leveling system because exp was poor & how ugly most of the armors were

@OmegaYato There is no difference when your opinions align with undeniable fact. Don't know what's so hard to understand.

Fact, Witcher 3 is overrated.

I've been really enjoying Persona 5 lately, so it great to see it so high on this list. Horizon Zero Dawn and Monster Hunter World are both excellent and well deserving of their high spots. Nier Automata should have been higher up the list, that's still one of my favourite PS4 games.

There's still a lot of games on this list that I would like to play but haven't yet. I'm not sure how Witcher 3 can be as good as people say it is, but if it is then I am in for a treat whenever I finally play it.

@ShogunRok Where is it a fact that the Witcher 3 is the greatest game ever? You could’ve just let me comment & leave it there, not everyone will agree with lists. It’s probably the greatest game of 2015, but the greatest game ever? There’s only one game I know of that’s regarded as the greatest by critics & gamers.

Bloodborne. All. Day.

Dragon Quest XI, because it’s turn-based perfection.

@Vorlon I think there’s like, two or 3 that I haven’t got! And I want two of them already! Dragon crown pro and divinity 2. Maybe Odins sphere too...... a massive fan! 😊

@Vorlon here here! Final fantasy 7 remake not going to be turn based? 😥😭😡!

@Feena and zodiac age! So four I want to buy leaving the elders scrolls and final fantasy online games........